Michael Cerveris Quotes

In the piano, one has the instrument complete before he begins; but in the case of the voice, the instrument has to be developed by study.

When the student has her voice under complete control, it is safe to take up the lyric repertoire of Mendelssohn, Old English Songs, etc. How simple and charming they are!

Well, the teacher I studied with for nineteen and a half years was a man named Paul Gavert. He was a great lieder singer, so basically I'm a trained lieder singer because of that teacher. The teacher I currently study with - since 1995 - is Joan Lader, who also studied with Gavert.

Because everything about the voice interests me, I felt it would be fascinating to learn a completely different style of singing.

I've taken singing lessons since I was young, just to work on technique.

I've studied voice from a few different people for years.

I want to be able to sing like Whitney Houston did.

Over the years, I was lucky; right from the beginning, I studied with a lady who had a lot of... she was a classical singer, and of course, they're a little bit more into, you know, preserving the voice, making sure your instrument is ready to perform.

I wish I had given more time to learning classical singing.

I do not support that everyone has to be a trained classical singer to be able to sing in films but some sort of knowledge in classical space can take you to places.

I've never had a very quiet voice. I tried in choir to make it smaller, and it just didn't work out. And I listened to a lot of soul music when I was growing up on my own accord. But I was mostly into Mama Cass and Gladys Knight, and they all had big voices too; just different than mine.

Thousands of kids and parents come up to us and say, How do we get better as a singer?

You have to get to know your voice and its strengths and play on those. It took me quite a long time.

I'm a chameleon. I can change my voice a lot. I always was able to, because in my family's music, I was a harmony singer, and harmony singing is really hard.

I don't believe in singing lessons. You can sing or you can't.

When I had my first voice lesson I was 15 years old. And I had a really good teacher. This is what made all the difference. A good teacher will teach you the technique, but also how to listen to your voice.

To sing along with Stevie Wonder, you had to make your voice do things it was not accustomed to doing.

I enjoy singing.

I studied voice for about two years with an amazing coach, and I never rose above the level of mediocre.

I truly wish I could sing.

I have such happy memories of performing in a choir and I don't think I'd have got where I am today without all that experience. So my advice to young singers is to either join your school or church's choir or find one in your local area. Choral music at any level teaches you so much about musicianship and blending your voice.

I took vocal lessons all through my childhood and still do. I was classically trained.

I thought everybody had falsetto. And since I wasn't a schooled singer who studied with anybody, I just thought anybody who had a voice could do anything they wanted with their voice.

I went to Julliard where they use a lot of voice and speech exercises.

I love to sing, and I warm up to Maria Callas.